Programs sponsored by the University of Minnesota

MSID (Minnesota Studies in International Development)

MSID is a comprehensive program focused on development and its contradictions, consisting of these optional areas (tracks) of specialization: Public Health, Environment, Microfinance, Social Service, Education and Arts, Spanish and Culture.

The MSID program (Minnesota Studies in International Development), sponsored by the Learning Abroad Center at the University of Minnesota, is aimed at preparing culturally sensitive individuals who are committed to social justice and the sustainable development of all societies of the world. This program allows students to learn more about the notions of progress and modernization through the contrast of Western and indigenous worldviews, examining their contradictions and impacts on peoples' lives.

MSID aims to engage the educational community, as well as the community at large, in dialogue and mutual learning experiences with people of other cultures while at the same time maximizing cultural immersion through structured tasks during classroom study, internships and personal research projects.

Our courses provide students with a theoretical framework and information that will enable them to reach an understanding of the environmental and cultural diversity of Ecuador, fostering a critical understanding of the main characteristics and contradictions of development models implemented in Ecuador in particular and in Latin America as a whole. In the same way, the course seeks to determine the content of Western thought in relation to the processes of consolidation, development and critique of modernity, reflecting from the global to the local, in order to understand the pluralities of multicultural societies and their relationships with environment.

MSID integrates general theories of development with case studies and team learning.